Samus (WC)

Samus is the main protagonist of the Metroid series and a playable character in Worlds Collide. despite having Zero Laser as her final smash, she does not transform into Zero Suit Samus, thus separating the two.

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Samus has a wide array of both projectiles and physical attacks, which can be used in promising combinations. Samus is a heavyweight and ranks in the middle of the speed-class. However, she is tall, which makes her easier to hit (a common problem amongst most of the game's heavyweights). She has very low KO power and high floatiness for her weight class. Samus can be awkward to fight effectively with against the game's faster, more graceful characters, but with a good combination of long and short-range attacks, she can be deadly. Samus has the third-slowest falling speed in the game, behind Peach and Jigglypuff. This is both advantageous and disadvantageous. On the upside, her floatiness can be used to bolster her aerial game. Staying in the air longer allows Samus to follow-up with other aerials; given that many of her moves have low knockback, she can create all sorts of continuous strings of low-to-moderate percentage attacks. More importantly, her floatiness allows her to have an above-average recovery game. On the downside, her slow fall speed also makes her recovery predictable and fairly easily edge-guarded (though, her floatiness makes her edgeguarding game easier and safer). Samus can also be easily juggled because her fast fall is still very slow and as a result of this her momentum canceling is poor and only makes her live slightly above average vertically despite being the 7th heaviest in terms of weight. Despite her ground moves being weak in term of knockback, they deal decent damage. Samus has much time to dodge attacks while throwing foes off with things like Bombs (and Bomb Jumping), or she can speed things up by using her surprisingly long Grapple Beam to zip to the safety of the edge. One of the most valuable uses of her slow falling speed is successfully meteor smashing an opponent who has no ground on which to land and still being able to recover easily. She also has the largest ledge sweetspot.
Her neutral special, Charge Shot, does great knockback at higher percentages and is a deadly projectile for edgeguarding, when fully charged. Samus has two kinds of Missiles: the Homing Missile homes on opponents and deals 5% damage; and the Super Missile moves in a fast, straight line and deals 10 % damage and noticeable knockback. Her up special, Screw Attack gives her decent vertical height, is a good out of shield option and can trap opponents for damage racking. Her down special, Bomb, makes Samus shift into morph ball mode and lays a bomb, which will explode after a set time period. Her grab has great range, but it is laggy if she fails to grab an opponent (although performing a dash grab can remedy this). In the air, her Grapple Beam can damage opponents and can be used as a tether recovery.
Samus works best when transitioning well from the air to the ground. None of Samus's aerials have landing lag, with her forward and up aerials having no knockback except at the final hit. Samus can capitalize on this by canceling into more powerful moves like her forward smash and down tilt, or by using a fully charged Charge Shot in the event the opponent is a bit too far away. Missiles also factor into the air to ground transition; landing immediately after the missile has been fired negates the significant firing lag, so one can immediately follow up with another missile (of either kind). This lag negation allows for a "double missile" effect where Samus can fire one missile, land, and almost immediately fire another. These missiles can also stop opponents' recoveries, such as Pikachu's Skull Bash, Luigi's Green Missile, Jigglypuff's Rollout, Ike's Quick Draw or Wolf, Fox, or Falco's side special recovery, setting them up for an immediate meteor smash. A Missile Charge Shot combination is an excellent combo, but can sometimes be predictable, so Samus mains must learn to launch them unexpectedly. Her aerial Grapple Beam ("zair") actually acts as a move to complement this strategy, stunning opponents from far away with high speed, and also cancels immediately upon landing, which can combo into a down tilt or smash. Coupled with the Charge Shot's potency, Samus has no problem frustrating opponents from a safe distance, chipping away at her opponent's approach to best suit her. Although Samus has three different projectiles, she still lacks a reliable way to deal with opponents' projectiles especially since her shield roll is very slow (slowest in the game).
Samus' major problem lies in her extreme lack of finishing abilities. Her quickest KO move is her down tilt. But with vertical knockback and a small hitbox, has trouble KOing opponents before around 130% and is recommended to not be used until the right time as to not devalue it with stale-move negation. Also, her forward smash is quick and deals high damage, but doesn't KO properly before around 130%. Her down smash has rather low knockback, and doesn't KO reliably before 150%. Her only way to KO at lower damage percentages is using either the down aerial for meteor smashes or juggling with her back aerial. Unfortunately, the back aerial telegraphs itself, has a tiny sweet spot, and requires good setup, while the down aerial is rather slow and has a sweeping hitbox that also needs good placement, despite its fairly large hitbox. Even a fully-charged Charge Shot doesn't tend to KO until at least over 100%, making it one of the least KO-capable charged specials in the game, however it is still a good move for edgeguarding.
All in all, Samus can be a character of good and bad situations with her wide array of projectiles and a fairly powerful spike. A huge problem in competitive play is that Samus is easily chain grabbed due to her heavy weight and large size with the exception of chain grabs that are ineffective on very floaty characters, and can be infinite chain-grabbed by King Dedede.
Finally, given Samus' problem with KOing and opponents' difficulty in KOing her, high-level matches involving Samus tend to take awhile, making time limitations in a match a crucial factor as well.

Rolling animation is significantly faster, and it has been changed to a conventional side-step animation.

Can now crawl, with a similar animation to her previous roll, and has gained a new crawl attack based off of the boost ball from Metroid Prime.

Can now swap between flame and ice beam types with side taunt; this affects her down tilt, forward smash, forward aerial, up smash, and Missiles. Taunt canceling this will still result in a beam switch. This gives Samus a new repertoire of altered attacks to work with, allowing players to be more creative in their styles.

Super wavedash timing window increased from one frame to two frames.

Charge Shot can now be charged while airborne.

Grapple Beam has shorter reach, but is much faster in both start-up and ending lag, similar to Link's Clawshot. Dash grab retains its speed unchanged but it now has the same range as the standing grab.

Can no longer use the extended grapple.

Forward smash now has a flame effect, akin to Super Smash Bros. 4.

Samus can no longer change into Zero Suit Samus in mid-match with her taunts.

Up taunt replaced with her Melee taunt.

While most characters in Project M keep their Brawl voices and sounds, Samus uses SFXs from Melee for her jumps, Charge Shot and Screw Attack.

Fires a bluish white large beam of energy in front of her that traps opponents caught in the blast before blasting them away. Move lasts about 5 seconds and passes through terrain. Has decent knockback.